The history of the Red Cross has its source at the Battle of Solferino. In this battle, June 24, 1859, the army of Napoleon III crushes Austrians. Thousands of wounded dying for lack of care.

Henry Dunant, citizen of Geneva, improvised rescue with the help of local civilians indiscriminately and assists soldiers on both sides.
Horrified by what he sees on the field of battle and suffering of so many soldiers wounded and abandoned to their fate, he published on his return one of the first reports of war, A Memory of Solferino, in which he denounced the horrors of war and laid the foundations of assistance to victims of war.

Founded in October 1863, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the origin of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.
It is a Swiss humanitarian institution, independent and private, has its headquarters in Geneva.
Impartial, neutral and independent organization, the ICRC has the exclusively humanitarian mission to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. It directs and coordinates the international relief activities conducted by the Movement in situations of conflict. It also endeavors to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles.

Guardian of humanitarian law, the ICRC has been mandated by the international community to ensure in particular its application by the parties to a conflict.

Present in 182 countries and involving 97 million men and women, the Red Cross is now the largest humanitarian organization in the world.
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement comprises the ICRC, the International Federation and National Societies. Although their activities are different components of the Movement are united by the same fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality and the use of common symbols.

Today, in addition to domestic disaster relief, the American Red Cross offers services in five other areas: community services that help the needy; communications services and comfort for military members and their family members; the collection, processing and distribution of blood and blood products; educational programs on preparedness, health, and safety; and international relief and development programs.

Contemporary Clovis and St. Remi, Genevieve was born in Nanterre 422. At the age of seven, she met Germain, bishop of Auxerre, and Wolf, bishop of Troyes, who would stop in this town before embarking for England to fight on the orders of the Pope, the heresy of Pelagius. The girl was praying in the church of Nanterre and Germain prophesies to Genevieve’s parents an exceptional destiny of the child. When her mother was struck with blindness for giving a blow to Genevieve, it heals with the water she blessed.

Geneviève promised to Germain to devote herself to Christ, and, at fifteen, she received the veil of virgins. At the time, in fact, there were no monasteries of women and those who wished to devote herself to the Lord continued to live in the world, simply distinguished by the veil of their consecration. On the death of his parents, Genevieve came to live in Paris with her godmother. She lives in silence, prayer and mortification, eating only twice a week. It is also favored by extraordinary graces, reading in consciousness and healing the body in the name of Christ through anointed with oil.

Saint Germain defends against slanders. Geneviève built the first basilica of Saint-Denis. Night she visited the site with her companions, when the wind extinguishes the candle that lit the way of the small group. Genevieve takes the candle, which comes back right away, and flame resistant to all storms.

In 451, Attila crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul. Parisians get scared and want to flee. Genevieve convinces them to stay in the city. It brings together the women of Paris in the church baptistery near Notre Dame and asked them to beg Heaven to save their city. This is what happens. Abandoning the road to Paris, the Huns are moving towards that besiege Orleans. Constrained by the armies of the Roman general Aetius, they retreated to the north and are decisively defeated the Champs Catalauniques. Later, when the Franks besieged Paris, Geneviève save the city this time of famine. She organizes an expedition through ingenious boats, by the Seine, fetch supplies until Champagne. Her reputation extends to East. Clovis and Clotilde will dedicate her with great reverence. She will be buried with the king in the Church of the Holy Apostles St. Clotilde had built and which will in the seventh century the name of Sainte-Geneviève.

Genevieve died in 512 in nearly 90 years. His body was transported 845 Marizy for fear of the Normans and brought to Paris in 890. From the twelfth century, the reliquary containing the relics are carried in procession through Paris. Miracles take place in its path especially when “ergotism” or “sacred fire” a terrible pestilential fever descended on Paris and all over France, with no medicine could not stop it. It was an internal inflammation, accompanied by gangrene attacking end members. To ward off the plague, the Bishop of Paris, ordered fasts and prayers, and then asked to carry the sick on the way he led the solemn procession to the Basilica Sainte-Geneviève at Notre Dame, November 26.
Patients who touched the relic of St. Genevieve were immediately healed, and among the Parisians, only three died skeptical. Evil began to decline and eventually disappear.

The following year, Pope Innocent II, in memory of this miracle, instituted the feast of St. Genevieve of Ardent.

The reliquary containing the remains of the Holy located in a crypt of the church of Saint Genevieve had a large amount of gold and silver and precious stones which had been given by the nobles. It will unfortunately fade avidly in 1793 by the Paris Commune, and some of her relics were burned by the barbarians before being thrown into the Seine in 1793. The Church of St. Geneviève, confiscated in 1791 with the abbey which it depended, was demolished in 1801 to 1807 … It is unfortunately not the only example of desecration of Christian symbols in the Revolution! Geneviève’s tomb is empty and has been transported to the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, where she continues to be revered.

But the headstone that bore the body of the Blessed was spared from 512 in 1793 due to lack of interest and is mixed with the debris of the church will be found in 1802 before being transferred to the St. Genevieve church to the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. A chapel dedicated to her in 1852:

-her tombstone will be covered with a shrine, real silverware coat,-a copy of the statue that adorned the old church of Sainte Geneviève has been integrated into the altar-three reliquaries containing the last relics of the Saint, which had been distributed to other parishes, are deposited at the foot of the statue.

Like the prophets of Israel, as the prophets of ancient Gauls and Germans, she came out of retirement day perils to meet the hearts of his countrymen and predict the future.
She had repeatedly announced the invasion of Gaul by the barbarians, infuriating his fellow by his prophetic words.
She also predicts that Attila would not come against Paris, and, indeed, Paris had not seen the Huns. Subsequently, she urged Paris to bear the sufferings and terrors of the siege. One day, she embarked on the Seine to fetch at Melun, a large convoy of food she brought in the famished city. Thus, it preserved Paris.
These are the memories that have earned Geneviève be called the patron saint of Paris

Until the sixteenth century, Genevieve is wearing a dress girl noble, rarely religious she is holding a candle a demon tries to turn, but an angel is lit (Beautiful Hours Duke of Berry, 1407-1408, New York, Cloisters). In another scene, she makes for her mother.

A radical change occurs at the end of the fifteenth century: Geneviève becomes a young shepherdess surrounded by sheep was probably there be confused with Jeanne d’Arc child. This transformation can also be likened to the Virgin shepherdess, feminine replica of the Good Shepherd, who does not seem to appear before the seventeenth century. She sits a crook in hand, surrounded by her flock in the midst of a “cromlech” (School of Fontainebleau, Saint-Merry church in Paris). Hugo Van der Goes the watch with a devil off his candle (fifteenth century Vienna, Gemäldegalerie). In the nineteenth century, Puvis de Chavannes dedicated cycle Children of Genevieve (1874, Pantheon, ancient church Sainte-Geneviève in Paris).

In 1994, a century after the death of the painter Gustave Caillebotte was entitled to his first retrospective. The exhibition subtitled “Urban Impressionist” left Paris to Chicago and Los Angeles, and made known to the public a French painter largely ignored so far in Europe and America by presenting more than 100 portraits, interiors, still lifes, landscape – particularly impressive – large urban landscapes.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) was best known art historians because of the friendship that bound the impressionists which he had also the patron. He helped financially painters who lived in poverty by buying their paintings. We had forgotten that he was a painter himself and even many paintings exhibited with the Impressionists. He never sold his work because he did not need to.
Even after his untimely death, his paintings remained in possession of his family. It was not until the end of the 50′s for the family decided to sell some paintings by Caillebotte.

The painting on this page (rue de Paris), measure 212cm on 276cm, so fairly large size.
This painting represents a crossroads by a Parisian afternoon winter avenues are wide, uniform facades, the view. This is the Paris we know but when Caillebotte painted it it was brand new and modern for the time.
Gustave Caillebotte was born into a prosperous family of the big bourgeoisie, the class could also belong to those shown in this table. His father was enriched by delivering beds to the French army, leaving his wife and son four reports several buildings and a villa. A 26 years after the death of his father, Caillebotte had a considerable fortune.

After studying law, he entered the studio of the academic painter Léon Bonnat, but mythological and historical themes discussed here do not meet and he joined a group of artists such as Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissaro and Alfred Sisley, who wanted to paint nature in daylight and treat topics.
They can not exhibit their work in formal living room, and they formed a “Société Anonyme Cooperative painters sculptors and engravers.” The critical time was indignant. After seeing “Impression Sunrise” by Monet, was called the young painters of impressionism, after the famous words of a journalist: “I thought too, since I’m impressed, there should be the impression in there … “

Their first exhibition of 1874, which was not involved Caillebotte, scandal. He presented several paintings in the second exhibition of 1876, and in 1877, the third, he exhibited including “Paris Street, Rainy Time”. The critic Georges River is a researcher notes that bold on which hopes up based. Three years later the novelist Joris-Karl Huysmanns said: “This one is a great painter, a painter whose paintings take some later their place alongside the best.”
Time would give reason to Huysmanns but Caillebotte, ‘was nevertheless seen for nearly a century as manager and philanthropist, who rented rooms to Impressionists, brought executives, was advertising and financed.
In 1878, he gave 750 francs to Pissaro, he paid the rent and move Monet and bought 18 works, he admired his painter friends who had denied the tradition – perhaps he too dreamed to detach from the middle-class which it was derived.
His younger brother died in 1876 and Gustave Caillebotte thought the time had come for him to make a will. It is entered in the history of art as it procured the Impressionists late but official recognition of artworks to the French State on the condition that exposes it appropriately, “or in a attic, i in a museum of province “, and only if the public accepted this painting. According Caillebotte, it could take “20 years or longer.”
He was not mistaken: it was not until 1897, three years after his death and after violent discussions, the French government decided to accept the bequest. For the first time, 40 Impressionist paintings were presented in a national institute, the Luxembourg museum in Paris.
The donor was so modest that he did not want to impose his works to the French state next to the painters he admired, so Renoir decided to add to this exhibition one Caillebotte painting “les raboteurs de parquet”.

The table title mentions “a Paris street,” but we see more and we can easily identify: opens before us the rue de Turin, left Moscow street running down the center and at the bottom, the Calpeyron street. The crossing will call today instead of Dublin and close to the Gare St Lazare.
These rows of street had been created during the Youth Caillebotte, within the limits of the old city on a hill where was born a residential area populated by wealthy bourgeois.
The city center was not far redesigned too, with the Opera House and the wide boulevards lined with cafes and upscale luxurious department stores.

All this was the work of Baron Haussmann, prefect of the Seine from 1853 to 1869. Napoleon III was responsible for destroyed the medieval center with its narrow streets and constructions wet after two outbreaks of cholera had caused thousands of deaths. No government dared to tackle this problem so far, but the Emperor was in favor of progress, it would improve the living conditions of the population and Hausmann gave the order to “take the old Paris” his “army” of officials. Baron was not satisfied with the old Paris, he also conquered new territory west of the city and turned into a residential area.

Credit played a key role in the financing of this work, the authoritarian prefect gave “carte blanche” for all construction projects, whether public or private administration haussmann sole jurisdiction: from 1850, reform law authorizes to conduct massive expropriations – on behalf of the public unit, even without due process. Were demolished, they built, there was speculation, land prices climbed. “The wheels of expropriation” worked, as well as Emile Zola says, “as a powerful machine that, for fifteen years, has upset Paris, blowing fortune and ruin …”
Caillebotte’s father is enriched at that time: in 1866, he bought “the city of Paris, represented by Baron Haussmann”, a field he paid 148,780 francs, with the obligation to build. When he died a millionaire, his fortune was mainly composed of tenements in the new districts and distinguished.
Private individuals built, but under the influence of authorities and according to uniform building regulations. Thus was born what we see on the Caillebotte painting: wide straight roads connecting one place to another or building particularly important – station or Opera, Bourse – to another and offering a spectacular view . Haussmann appreciated the clear perspective and symmetry, he liked to see the streets to join the star-places, as well as Caillebotte painted.
The houses were not desired, but reports monumental buildings sheltering luxury apartment showing virtually identical facades carved stone.

The widening of the Rue Reaumur. Parallel to the Grands Boulevards, the artery is today one of the major roads of Paris between the Opera and the Rue du Temple. Before being extended under the reign of baron, she crossed one of the darkest places of the capital, the famous Court of Miracles (left). (Charles Marville / Publishing Patron and Gilles Leimdorfer for Le Figaro Magazine).

Each district had its gutter height data, it was most often houses six floors with balcony railings on the second and fifth floor, which should extend the entire length of the facade. Today, many places have their thread and aesthetic uniformity and harmony Baron Haussmann. He reorganized the urban landscape according to his tastes and those of bourgeois inhabitants of the capital, and Caillebotte painted that was modern at the time. Caillebotte’s family, it is said that the painter had prepared preliminary drawings to his paintings, sitting in a bus – at the time these cars were still public horse-drawn – especially glass, so sheltered from the cold and rain. But because “even in nature must dial” like so well Degas, Caillebotte chooses its viewing angle so that a table was born almost geometrical construction. A gas burner in cast iron lying by shadows on the wet pavement, stands at the center of the painting. Standard accessory, manufactured industrially, the lamp rythmed streets Haussmann. Caillebotte also used to structure his painting, divide the vertical plane. On the horizontal plane is organized by the street which crosses the stage and a virtual line that connects almost all the heads of the characters. At right, the man with the umbrella cut in two by the edge of the painting (rue de Paris, temps de pluie), gives the impression that we are faced with a new scene taken from life, framing, chosen at random, and not designed to paint all the details .

At the exhibition of 1877, Caillebotte also showed off “Paris Street rainy weather the” large canvas “Pont de l’Europe”. It shows bourgeois and workers walk on a wide bridge over the rails of the Gare St Lazare by a warm and clear spring morning or summer.
On this occasion, the other impressionists as expounded variants views of the capital, paying tribute to the city of loafers, idlers and people dancing merrily in cabarets.
This does not really fit artistic tastes. During the War of 1870, France had been occupied by the Germans, then the revolutionary commune took power, set fire to buildings and was severely repressed during the “bloody week”. In 1877, the reparations were paid to Germany, the economy flourished and the Republican government was preparing to celebrate the reconstruction with the Universal Exhibition of 1878. In a series of articles, Renoir asked artists to lend their support to democratization and to help give color to the city. Caillebotte painting of a third, presented the exhibition of 1877, shows that building painters paint in color gray facades of the street. In “Paris street” recognizes one of them with its scaffolding in the background.
Nevertheless, the painting does not show the Paris joyful, sociable, who wants to forget the bad memories, on the contrary: most of the characters portrayed seem lonely, they do not wander the empty streets, they hurry: their umbrellas don’t protect them only from the rain that falls but apparently there also other bystanders. In addition to contemplating the pavement dominate almost a quarter of the surface of the canvas, many spectators would think would think unwittingly about the Commune of 1871, paving stones thrown up barricades.

Very young he left his native village, and in 1894, entered the School of Arts and Crafts in Craiova where he admitted the following year in the sculpture studio then in wood carving. In 1898, he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Bucharest. In 1904, he crossed a part of Europe join Munich, where he stopped some time at the Art Academy before arriving in Paris on July 1914.

Upon his arrival in Paris, he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the studio of a sculptor recognized academic Antonin Mercie. In 1906-1907, a graduate of Fine Arts, he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne. Auguste Rodin, president of the jury, noticed his work and asked him to become director developed in his studio. At that time Rodin enjoys international recognition and nearly fifty assistants working for him.

A month in Rodin’s studio is enough to estimate that “nothing grows in the shade of large trees.” Following a difficult period to define its own commitment to artist: “It was the hardest years, the years of research, the years when I had to find my own way.”

Brancusi comes from an archaic world and an ancient tradition of wood carving. For the sculptor, “it is the texture of the material that controls the theme and form both of which must leave the matter to him and not be imposed from outside.”
Brancusi does not appear as a designer but as an intercessor able to reveal within the material he uses “the cosmic essence of matter.” In the choice of its prior block of stone or wood, Brancusi receives advance in the specificity of the material, the presence of the sculpture. These forms smooth, ovoid polisses sculpture purifies us back to the statues of the Greek Cyclades in space …

After discovering the major themes of his work between 1909 and 1925, (The Kiss, The Bird, The Endless Column, The Roosters …), Brancusi that will take tirelessly, often with slight variations.
Within modernity being formed, the avant-garde have little influence on his work. He is more interested in wood carvings by Gauguin, he sees in the retrospective devoted to the artist in 1906 at the Salon d’Automne in Paris.
In reality, it really does not meet model and in Western sculpture, as do many artists of his time, he is interested in other cultures, those of Asia and Africa, present in the collections of the Guimet Museum, the Louvre Museum or the Museum of Ethnography of the Trocadéro.

References to an archaic art he can extract his work contingencies own styles in his time and register his sculptures in a more universal dimension. At the same time, when Brancusi said: “It is not the external form which is real, but the essence of things. Based on this truth, it is impossible for anyone to express something real by imitating the surface of things, “it is deeply rooted in a thought structure that the art of the twentieth century, from Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich up ‘Yves Klein, Richard Serra and the minimalist artists American sixties. Potentially infinite seriality Columns Brancusi and the importance given to the perception of the space in which his works are part define much of contemporary sculpture from the fifties.

Brancusi is also a close friend of Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie, Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Tristan Tzara. In 1912, he visited with Duchamp and the Light Fair in Paris Aerial Locomotion. A majestic airplane propeller, Duchamp asked if an artist today can do a work as beautiful and pure as the propeller. At that time, Brancusi began the cycle of Birds theme that develop to obtain a pure upward momentum. This story also shows how his sculpture, which refers to the ancient sources and timeless, may enter into correspondence with modernity. The beauty of objects produced by industry passionate generation of artists of the early 20th century.

Precursor of abstract art, Brancusi is keen to reduce forms to their simplest expression, favoring the ovoid. In addition, it uses raw materials, not reworked, like ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Spirit of the Buddha’. In 1926, his sculptures are blocked at the U.S. border due to a misunderstanding that customs did not understand that it was art. A historic trial opens, because the debate is about the definition of art, beauty and the legitimacy of abstraction. Brancusi is recognized today as one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century. The whole ‘Tirgu-Jiu, Romania erected, but especially’ The Bird in Space ‘are considered essential references of contemporary art. His Paris studio is restored to the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) is undoubtedly one of the most important painters of the late nineteenth century France. His work engaged art of the 1900s to new ways, which today still impresses with its quality and complexity.
Cuiseaux born in Saône-et-Loire November 11, 1868, he grew up in a modest family in Paris.
He joined in March 1886 at the Académie Julian. In June 1887 he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts and follows the teachings of Jean-Léon Gérôme.

He developed his taste for realistic still lifes and loves painting interior scenes. His work is characterized by a subtle and nuanced research ranges colored equilibrium between light and dark, lines worked arabesque decorative motifs inspired by Japanese prints.

This is a great admirer of classics like Vermeer, Watteau and Chardin, but it ‘s also very interested in the German artists of the seventeenth century.
In 1889, he joined a small group of artists from the Académie Julian, Maurice Denis and Pierre Bonnard who perform works marked symbolism and spirituality, which call themselves the “Brotherhood of Nabis” (Nabis meaning “prophets “in Hebrew), while claiming the work of Paul Gauguin.

It is for them to release all academic conventions and in particular the reproduction of nature or of the observed scene. The important thing is the proper reality of the painting itself, more than the reproduction of reality. They are disappointed by the limitations of Impressionism which simply reproduce landscapes, and ultimately be a loss for them as intellectual imagination, the feeling must be the key drivers of emotion. We need to bring art into life.

In 1899, Vuillard makes some lithographs wit the series “Landscapes and Interiors”, as well as studies in pastels and watercolors that show great virtuosity in new technologies. This is a period where he also as decorative panels for interior Parisian mansions, posters and boxes of decorations “avant-garde” theater, and photographs of his close friends.

NABIS period is the most fruitful innovations in his work, which is a decorative very marked. The palette of the artist’s favorite however remains the same despite the adoption of technology Gauguin (solids without shades, colors violence, by partitioning concealer brush like a window) and adherence to the theories of Maurice Denis.

Vuillard interpreter Japanese prints in a way that recalls some japanese paintings by Bonnard, more rarely, it synthesizes the extreme: In bed (1891, Paris, Musée d’Orsay). The octagonal Selfportrait, the Reader is already in 1891-92 beasts by their bright colors, but remain without day in his work. In 1892, the first set decorative nabi is that the artist performs for the hotel Desmarais, cousins Natanson. In 1893, Vuillard performs tables with subject or portraits of bourgeois interiors peopled with integrated walls so that they almost merge with them and look out: Workshop (1893, Northampton, Mass.., Smith College Museum of Art), Interior (1887, Zurich, Kunsthaus). After a series of public gardens, painted in 1894 for Alexandre Natanson (Paris,

After 1900, he turned more towards portraits receiving numerous orders of the Parisian bourgeoisie. His compositions are becoming increasingly large and monumental they acquire depth and volume that had not earlier works. They are intended for large country houses (those of Bernheim-Jeune in Bois-Lurette [1913] or Hessel).

It neglects provided by the interior scenes he particularly likes, where he painted the privacy of rooms furnished responsible for prolonged moments of everyday life.
The description of the interior does not prevent the depth and sensitivity of portraits: the Natanson, the Bernheim-Jeune, the Hessel, Dr. Viau, Mrs. Bénard, the Comtesse de Noailles, the Nabis (Paris, Petit Palais), Ms. Vasquez Dr. Widmer, Jeanne Lanvin (1928) and his daughter the Countess de Polignac (1929), Countess of Blignac, among many others, have posed for the artist.
The nudes are rare in these apartments and plush furniture cluttered 1900 Vuillard has however done some early century (Woman styling, interior).

They have neither the freedom nor splendor of inspiration for those of Bonnard, yet these bare mention them by their intimacy, their relationship with the objects around them. Despite some successes (Landscape with Pond-la-Ville, 1899 at the Maison de Mallarmé Valvins, 1895, Paris, Musée d’Orsay), Vuillard also feels less comfortable outdoors. Embarrassed by the landscape, it is more inspired by the streets and gardens of Paris: Paris Landscape (c. 1905), Public Gardens (1894, Paris, Musée d’Orsay), Place Ventimiglia (1907), he mixes memories of Bazille and Monet, Puvis de Chavannes and the theme of the streets of Paris views height treated by Bonnard (1891-1892).

After 1930, during his vacation in the castle of Clayes property of his friends Hessel, it runs still lifes, flower vases simple, often placed in front of a window, all works of relaxation and harmony where the talent colorist there appears even at its best.

The Gate of Saint-Denis is a Parisian monument located in the 10th “arrondissement”, at the site of one of the gates of the Charles V Wall, one of the now-destroyed fortifications of Paris. It is located at the crossing of the Rue Saint-Denis continued by the “Rue du Faubourg” Saint-Denis, with the Boulevard of “Bonne-Nouvelle” and Saint-Denis Boulevard.

The Gate of Saint-Denis was built in 1672 by architect François Blondel and the sculptor Michel Anguier, who drew their inspiration from the source of Roman arches, on the orders of Louis XIV, in honor of his victories on the Rhin and in “Franche-Comté”. This is a remnant according to the wish of Colbert who was to built monumentals gates between the city and the suburbs of Paris.

This is actually a triumphal arch (inspired by the Arch of Titus) from a height of 50 m, which replaced a medieval gate in the wall of the former wall of Charles V. A Latin dedication brought to the magnificence of Louis le Grand, other inscriptions celebrate recent victories orchestrated by the king in Holland and the Rhine in 60 days, Louis XIV passed the Rhin (18th century), Wall and the Meuse the Elbe, conquered three provinces stormed fortresses and forty triumphed Utrecht.

The pyramids carved on both sides of the arch are symbolically crowned globes crowned and adorned with lilies. South side, trees wear glory helmets, armor, weapons, flags and remains of lion. North side, other symbols of military victories, such as palm trees, are highlighted.

The base of the pyramids to the south, this allegorical figures: Holland, despair, is flanked by a wounded lion, roaring, crushing his paw a sword and seven arrows broken symbols of the seven United Provinces terraced, in part, the Rhine river god subdued, holding a rudder.

Above the arch, two “bas-reliefs” elongated commemorate the south, the passage of the Rhine Tholus routing the enemy, and to the north, the siege of Maastricht.

The Gate is located at the intersection of the axis Saint-Denis (Saint-Denis and rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis) and Boulevard de Bonne Nouvelle westside – Boulevard Saint Denis eastside.

Clean the white leather. To maintain shoes (or a bag) of white leather, apply to the surface to clean some body milk, by means of a cotton. Then air, then wipe with a soft linen.

Give a longer life to candles. Before using your candles, place beforehand in your freezer, last them of life once light can surprise you. Some grains of salt put around the drill will have the same effect.

Make leave a bad smell inside a furniture. To arrive at end, it is necessary to boil a bowl of milk and to put the latter in the piece of furniture then to close doors until the milk is cold and the smells will have disappeared.

Clean and polish some marble. When we have a top of chest of drawers or marble table, we can easily clean it and polish it at the same time. It is necessary to mix some “blanc d’Espagne” (traditional whiting), with a little of Domestic alcohol and to spend the product on the surface. It is necessary to wipe then with a clean linen.

Clean brass instruments. Clean your brass instruments with the washing(washing powder) of soda, pure or diluted, by keeping the proportion of half a glass by liter of water. You can also maintain them with a mixture of flour, salt and vinegar: apply this dough to your brass instruments, and let rest approximately one hour. Rinse and make shine.

Have a brilliant silverware. To have a brilliant silverware, we are going to be able to use a remedy very effective house and little expensive. It is necessary to mix a little toothpaste in some soft soap in some warm water and to dip flatware and objects inside hanging a few minutes may wipe with a clean linen.

Clear a wooden piece of furniture.

When we want to clear a wooden piece of furniture to polish it then, it is necessary to rub it at first with a sponge soaked with bleach. Let it to dry may spend some hydrogen peroxide over. More the volume will be strong and more the piece of furniture will clear up. It is then enough to let dry and to polish.

Clean the brass natural way to clean brass naturally.

Mix one pound of coarse salt with white vinegar to a smooth paste. Let stand three hours and spend the dough on the brass with a small brush. Make circular movements and rinse with water.

Make a paste wood house.

Take enough sawdust to which you add wood glue. Stir the mixture into a suitable container, then add a little a little bit of silicone. Mix again: you get a wood pulp as effective as we can find from a store but for much less expensive.

Revive the color of the wood.

When wood is etched in general, it loses its color and it is a pity if you do not want the stain. To revive the color of the wood strip must soak a sponge with vinegar and hot pass on the wood. Leave to dry naturally.

Wash a very dirty glass carafe.

When a pitcher gets very dirty or a glass vase also very dirty, you can bring them back. We must crush an egg shell into the coffee and salt. Adding white vinegar and put the inside. Soak, agitate and rinse.

Have good smells in your home.

The most efficient way is to boil water a few minutes and you add vinegar (1/2 tbsp. Per liter).

You can also broil in the oven orange peel and lemon.

Another method is to pour on the a lighted electric bulbs, few drops of lemon essential oil or lavender. It purifies the air.

You can also place in various parts of the house handkerchiefs soaked pine oil. Pour a few drops of your cologne in the humidifier water. This will give a fresh smell in the house.

To eliminate odors from the refrigerator, soak a towel in vanilla and drop to the bottom of a shelf.

You can also soak cotton balls of essential oil and place them behind radiators. When the heating will work, the rooms will smell good.

Leather To make look younger a leather jacket, Pour on a white cloth some drops of glycerin and soak the jacket with it. Rub it then by means of a woolen cloth.

Labels Tags of prices stickers stuck on objects withdraw more easily if we rub them slowly with some vegetable oil.

Zip If your zip is difficult to activate, coat with lead of pencil, or with a little paraffin wax there. It will slide as a charm.

Ivory To clean of the ivory: some soapy water, some milk and a cloth of pure silk.

La Place des Vosges is the oldest planned square in Paris. It is located in the Marais district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th “arrondissements” of Paris.

Originally known as the Place Royale, the Place des Vosges was built by Henri IV from 1605 to 1612. A true square (140 m x 140 m), it embodied the first European program of royal city planning. It was built on the site of the Hôtel des Tournelles and its gardens: at a tournament at the Tournelles, a royal residence, Henri II was wounded and died. Catherine de Medicis had the Gothic complex demolished, and she removed to the Louvre.

The Place des Vosges, inaugurated in 1612 with a grand carrousel to celebrate the wedding of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, is the prototype of all the residential squares of European cities that were to come.

What was new about the Place Royale in 1612 was that the house fronts were all built to the same design, probably by Baptiste du Cerceau, of red brick with strips of stone quoins over vaulted arcades that stand on square pillars. The steeply-pitched blue slate roofs are pierced with discreet small-paned dormers above the experimented dormers that stand upon the cornices. Only the north range was built with the vaulted ceilings that the “galleries” were meant to have. Two pavilions that rise higher than the unified roof line of the square center the north and south faces and offer access to the square through triple arches. Though they are designated the Pavilion of the King and of the Queen, no royal personage has ever lived in the aristocratic square. The “Place des Vosges” initiated subsequent developments of Paris that created a suitable urban background for the French aristocracy.

Before the square was completed, Henri IV ordered the Place Dauphine to be laid out. Within a mere five-year period the king oversaw an unmatched building scheme for the ravaged medieval city: additions to the Louvre Palace, the “Pont Neuf”, and the “Hôpital Saint Louis” as well as the two royal squares.

Cardinal Richelieu had an equestrian bronze of Louis XIII erected in the center (there were no garden plots until 1680). The original was melted down in the Revolution; the present version, begun in 1818 by Louis Dupaty and completed by Jean-Pierre Cortot, replaced it in 1825. The square was renamed in 1799 when the “département” of the Vosges became the first to pay taxes supporting a campaign of the Revolutionary army. The Restoration returned the old royal name, but the short-lived Second Republic restored the revolutionary one in 1848.

It is completely unique in its construction. What started out as a fair exhibit has become one of the most recognized, most photographed, and most visited structures in Europe.

The Eiffel Tower is named after its designer, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel was a French civil engineer, specializing in metal structures. Before the Eiffel Tower, he created the Garabit viaduct and the internal frame for the Statue of Liberty, as well as other metal structures.

The French government held a contest for the best monument to be used as a display in the 1899 World’s Fair. More than 700 monument designs were entered. Eiffel won by unanimous vote with his tower design with a latticework design.

One of the feats of the Eiffel Tower was the construction process itself. The massive tower was completed much sooner than other monuments, taking two years to complete. And much less manpower was needed, only 300 steelworkers. Only one worker was killed during construction of the Eiffel Tower. According to the book “The Tallest Tower”, the tragedy occurred at the beginning of the construction by a careless worker after work had ended for the day.

But all Parisians did not love the Eiffel Tower. During the construction of the Eiffel Tower, a petition was distributed demanding that it be dismantled. Locals thought that the tower was an eyesore. By the time the famous tower was completed, however, Eiffel became known as the Magician of Iron.

GUSTAVE EIFFEL

When construction of the Eiffel Tower was over, it was the tallest structure in the world. It held this record until 1930. Today, the Eiffel Tower is still the tallest structure in Paris. The tower now stands at 1069 feet high, which is over 100 stories tall. The Eiffel Tower’s pillars correspond to the points on a compass.

The Eiffel Tower is built of almost pure structural iron. Despite the tower’s size, it weighs very little. According to engineers, the Eiffel Tower weighs less than the surrounding air. This causes the Eiffel Tower to give in the wind, as much as six inches. However, it is completely safe. The Eiffel Tower is built to withstand wind speeds at more than five times the strongest winds ever known. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, the wind can gust as high as 100 miles per hour.

The Eiffel Tower was supposed to only be on display until 1909 and then dismantled. It was almost torn down several times before then. What saved it from complete destruction was Eiffel himself. Eiffel contacted the military and convinced them of the tower’s potential to be a radio transmission tower. And the world owes him a debt for saving one of the most beautiful towers and engineering marvels ever created.

The special scholar discussed for a long time the more or less big age of the origins of “Saint Sulpice” church.

A gravestone of the Xth century, found in 1724 in the searches of the new church, proved that from time the most moved the back there was in this place a cemetery dependent on a chapel. We build a new church of the XIIth there in the XIVth century; It was enlarged by a nave under “François Ier”, and by three chapels in 1614. Nevertheless the increasing increase of the population of the village Saint Germain in the South of “Saint-Germain des Prés” created at his most illustrious inhabitant’s the thought to meet to raise a monumental church on the location of the former, which, moreover, threatened ruin.

The proposal was solved in an assembly, held on March 16th, 1643 under the presidency of the prince of Cop. Queen Anne of Austria put on February 20th, 1646 the first stone of the new church. The works, begun by Christophe Gamard, continued by Louis Le Vau, by Daniel Gittard, interrupted for lack of money from 1678 till 1718, resumed then under the direction of Oppenord, were ended with Jean Servandoni, thanks to the zeal of the priest Languet of Gergi and to the advantage of a lottery granted by Louis XV in 1721.

The big portal, finished in 1749, is the work of Servandoni; it consists of two superimposed porticoes, the ground floor, of Doric order, and the superior, Ionic order, drilled by seven arches up to date and surmounted by two towers of seventy meters, higher consequently of four meters than towers Notre- Dame.
The effect obtained by means so simple is impressive and majestic.

Each of both towers consists of a square detached house, accompanied with Corinthian columns and with a front wall, triangular in that of the North, half-arched in the tower of noon(south), which remains unfinished and waits ut crowning for one and a half century.

Over the square detached house, raises itself the circular tower. The tower of the North contains bells; his big height had indicated it to receive an air telegraph of the system Chappe, the black arms of which stirred over the street of the Blind persons until the installation of the electric telegraphy in Paris in 1852.
The architect Chalgrin had finished or rather reconstructed the tower of the North in 1777; the Revolution did not allow him to return the same work to the Southern tower.

From there, something strange and of out-of-place in the respective situation of these twin and dissimilar sisters whom Victor Hugo compared, by a comparison more pleasant than exact, in two stony clarinets. The inside of the building is of impressive dimensions; his length, since the first step of the main facade until the extremity of the chapel of the Virgin, which juts out in cor belled construction on the street Garancière, is 56 meters; his height, of 32 meters, since the pavement up to the vault.

It is less high and wider thus at the same time, any kept proportions, than
“Saint-Germain des Prés”, subtlety which exaggerates the feeling of vastitude, if we dare to express himself so. The width of “Saint-Germain des Prés” is only of a third approximately compared with the length and with the height, whereas the width of “Saint-Sulpice” represents tenth four of its length and hundredth only twenty three of its height. The chorus, completely built on Pierre Gittard’s drawings, is surrounded with seven arches posts of which are decorated with Corinthian pilasters; this prescription is also the one of the nave and the arm of the cross. All the pillars of “Saint-Sulpice” are dressed in marble at the level of support.

Behind the high altar, the chapel of the Virgin, attributed to Servandoni, and finished in 1777, eleven years after its death, by the architect Wailly, is of a magnificence which does not exclude either the grace or the unction. Vanloo painted panels, the brother Slodtz modelled the golden and bronze, marble ornaments; behind the altar, a narrow opening, drilled at the bottom of the terminal niche, lets filter a ray of mysterious light on a statue of the white marble Virgin, the masterpiece of Pajou.

The chapel grazes itself of a dome where Lemoine painted in fresco the Assumption, of a strong color which calls back Hercule’s ceiling, paints by the same artist to the palace of Versailles.